Riverfest 2015

angeldaisy

Anyone know what the parking situation is like? Planning on heading in around lunchtime from the Dublin side, trying to head to Arthurs Quay Park.

Wise Old Elf

angeldaisy wrote: »

Anyone know what the parking situation is like? Planning on heading in around lunchtime from the Dublin side, trying to head to Arthurs Quay Park.

Loads of road closures today for the various runs. Forget about Arthur's quay. Somewhere near the Clarion/Dock road might be your best bet for parking.
Check out the riverfest website for what roads are closed.

FobleAsNuck

http://www.limerick.ie/festivals/riverfest/whatsnew/2015-04-17-riverfest-2015-road-closures

angeldaisy

Thanks for that.

But what we do really badly here is just list off a load of road names. Where's the map, where does it give advice on best places to park.
We really don't make it easy for visitors to limerick.

I'm not from here, so not great with street names. So maps would be really useful!!

osarusan

Busses into town running today?

whatdoicare

osarusan wrote: »

Busses into town running today?

Yep but dropping off up by browsers/a little outside the centre.

FobleAsNuck

angeldaisy wrote: »

Thanks for that.

But what we do really badly here is just list off a load of road names. Where's the map, where does it give advice on best places to park.
We really don't make it easy for visitors to limerick.

I'm not from here, so not great with street names. So maps would be really useful!!

it's not exactly rocket science to copy&paste the name of the street into google maps. and since they're all in town you'd have the rest of them on a plate

angeldaisy

FobleAsNuck wrote: »

it's not exactly rocket science to copy&paste the name of the street into google maps. and since they're all in town you'd have the rest of them on a plate

No its not rocket science, but what it is is inconvenient, especially when you are using your phone. what I was suggesting was to make things easier for people heading into town.

A map showing the road closures, a list of car parks open etc, would have been handy to have going into town. Instead what I saw were loads of cars dumped anywhere and others driving round in circles trying to find somewhere to park.

I just think we need to understand that these events attract more than people from Limerick. We need to cater for those who have no idea of where they are going. Just make it more tourist friendly.

I've got to admit if I didn't know where I could park, I would have said sod it and headed home.

Parchment

Are the fireworks going ahead tonight....? Weather is not very compatible!

JamesBond2010

looks like they screwed it up again Hearing from different people, very poorly organised, like the Paddys day parade

Un Croissant

I remember the fireworks being delayed big time last year. Very annoying.

fryup

anything happening today monday??

zulutango

It was a poor festival, and seems to be getting worse year on year. Without the Great Limerick Run it would be shockingly and embarrassingly lame.

I guess that crowd from Galway had the cheapest price but their experience at running these things seems to be minimal.

The strategy seems to be to get the various newspapers on board to tell everybody that it's an amazing event. It's 'emperor's new clothes' type marketing crap.

Un Croissant

The events in limerick have been so poor since I've been here that I think I'm done with it. The only one worth going out to is the band parade.

I won't be out for riverfest or patricks day next year, or the Halloween festival that went on last year.

angeldaisy

I have to agree with you, we went in briefly on Sunday for the dog show. It was rained off, but nothing could be done about that.

The children's fun fair that was advertised in Arthur's Quay Park consisted of 2 pools, one with small pedal boats for small kids and one with those plastic balls you climb in. There were trampolines and a spinning 'seat' style experience. Not what I would consider a fun fair!

There was no real sense of cohesion about any of the events, everything was disjointed and messy. There was nothing signposted about where things were or what was on.

I really think that if this event is to continue, it needs to be run professionally. If I was a tourist in Limerick this weekend I would have been very disapointed and quite possibly have taken a negative view of the city. When that's not the case at all. We have a beautiful city here and we really should showcase it more.

Why don't the organisers consult the public and get feedback from what we actually would like to happen?

Un Croissant

The gf had been down for a few weeks and I took her to the milk market on the first Saturday she was here. She enjoyed it, fairly standard I guess but she was happy. Took her to the international market on Friday and we ended up staying out of town most of the weekend. Just felt very flat.

whatdoicare

Just home from the market today - god it was depressing, balloon/crap stall, jewellery stall, burger stall, crepe/sweet stall then, repeat, repeat, repeat.

Only one side of the road this year and I don't know, just felt like a half assed attempt. Like the life was just sucked out of the place.

Very poor attempt - really needs a bit of life injected into it - when your kid gets more excitement from a random dog passing by than by the riverfest market then you know things are bad. Terrible shame.

Limerick500

Cookiemunster wrote: »

It's got a Galway number because the new events company running it this year is based in Galway. Therefore there's already a new PR person. How about waiting to see how the weekend goes before saying it's the same as always.

I'm having trouble finding the name of the PR person for Grooveyard/Riverfest Limerick online. What is their name/contact details? Not a single name on their website.

Un Croissant

I heard a kid say "these are all food".

He clearly didn't see the herbal remedy stall.

whatdoicare

You know, and it kills me to admit this, but the Lidl christmas market behind the hunt museum was what Riverfest market should have been - There really should be stall upon stall of locally produced food, cosmetics, art, craft and garments and something really special laid on to entertain the children. A proper funfair would have been excellent - like the merry go round type thing they had at the spiegletent last year for the culture and chips festival. There was a great energy at the lidl thing and I came away with loads of stuff! They had a few tents laid aside with Santa type things and an area to try the lidl toys - surely there could be some kind of river related type thing at Riverfest, vikings maybe, a parade, music, arts and crafts, some entertainers - something to match that Riverfest photo from the first year.

Limerick500

whatdoicare wrote: »

You know, and it kills me to admit this, but the Lidl christmas market behind the hunt museum was what Riverfest market should have been - There really should be stall upon stall of locally produced food, cosmetics, art, craft and garments and something really special laid on to entertain the children. A proper funfair would have been excellent - like the merry go round type thing they had at the spiegletent last year for the culture and chips festival. There was a great energy at the lidl thing and I came away with loads of stuff! They had a few tents laid aside with Santa type things and an area to try the lidl toys - surely there could be some kind of river related type thing at Riverfest, vikings maybe, a parade, music, arts and crafts, some entertainers - something to match that Riverfest photo from the first year.

I completely agree with you. Why call this tacky festival Riverfest when it should just be 'Beer, Burgers and Races.'

timesnewroman

I don't know why they bother with the continental market myself. In my opinion it undermines the Milk Market.

Why not make the area around the market the center of the festival? A beer festival would be great under the canopy. An ethnic food festival might work (again in the market). I've been to a few gigs in the market and I thought it was a fine venue so I'd advocate more gigs there over the course of the weekend too.

Thomond Park have a family "fun" zone before all matches these days. It seems to work. Something like that, albeit on a larger scale, could also work over the course of the weekend and as was already mentioned a funfair.

sioda

It needs chairoplanes. Have to agree very underwhelmed by the whole thing. Ridiculous crowd control on the bottom of Denmark Street as well. Fireworks were good but our own market which was empty today and with a few stalls on Sunday should have been the centre of any other market.

The idea of a decent funfair would be class. Was there one event on the river I mean even a duck race would be an improvement.

Limerick500

timesnewroman wrote: »

I don't know why they bother with the continental market myself. In my opinion it undermines the Milk Market.

Why not make the area around the market the center of the festival? A beer festival would be great under the canopy. An ethnic food festival might work (again in the market). I've been to a few gigs in the market and I thought it was a fine venue so I'd advocate more gigs there over the course of the weekend too.

Thomond Park have a family "fun" zone before all matches these days. It seems to work. Something like that, albeit on a larger scale, could also work over the course of the weekend and as was already mentioned a funfair.

They are great ideas. I personally think it would be good to move away from a beer festival. The tacky endorsement of Coors Light was bad enough. As somebody mentioned in previous post the Viking history of Limerick should be made more of especially Brian Ború stories, etc. The entertainment they laid on this weekend by and large could've been in any town.

SuperWoody101

I think this has got to be one of the worst Riverfest weekends in history. I know the rain put a big downer on things but if it was sunny out it would have made no difference (apart from the run on Sunday) I would love to know how much money they get to run this kind of event.

Whats happening

Personally i felt the race Expo went better than other years, they scanned your race confirmation and then scanned a race number and synced the two, in the past they'd be looking through stacks of numbers for your name, so it would seem some lessons learnt.

However having to queue for a T-shirt and then so called goodie bag, which if i'd know the contents would have skipped was silly, and on the queue for the bags they'd a male and female queue, and as i was collecting mine and the wife's i asked for one of each and was told they were the same, then why not have one queue? But despite the army of volunteers directing activities peoples attitude to queuing bugs me something, some people think queues don't apply to them and simply bypass without any embarrassment.

Toffeeboy

As Superwoody101 said above. Money. I assume it always comes back to money. The Fashion Friday was held in AQ Shop centre so they probably paid for it? The BBQ is on Denmark st because the pubs in that area probably pay for it.
The Great Limerick Run is a private run event. Does any money come from the Council or Gov? Maybe they pay for the fireworks?
Maybe try and get the pubs near the river to sponsor a few events on the river. The Clarion, Curragower pub, McGettigans pub etc..
Ya the riverfest might have been a disappointment (same thing year in year out, etc. etc.) but it is always an uphill challenge when the weather is against you.

Lisa2011

I agree about the continental market yesterday. it was disappointing.The whole weekend needs to be organised by a proper event management company and the public should be consulted for ideas.

Limerick500

Lisa2011 wrote: »

I agree about the continental market yesterday. it was disappointing.The whole weekend needs to be organised by a proper event management company and the public should be consulted for ideas.

I completely agree with you Lisa. I hope there is a serious evaluation of this year's event management company Grooveyard in their organising of the festival. I think it is very telling that it is only photographs of the runners in the Great Limerick Run (the only decent part of the festival) and the fireworks being churned out on social media.

FutureGuy

Limerick500 wrote: »

I completely agree with you Lisa. I hope there is a serious evaluation of this year's event management company Grooveyard in their organising of the festival. I think it is very telling that it is only photographs of the runners in the Great Limerick Run (the only decent part of the festival) and the fireworks being churned out on social media.

Yep, two traders I spoke to at the continental food fair said the new organisers *ahem* left alot to be desired.